No to coal: NASA climatologist calls for no more coal plants to avoid global warming tipping point

Published 5:30 am, Friday, October 26, 2007

Before approving a costly and irreversible program to build a new generation of coal-fired power plants, Texas officials should carefully study the statements of James Hansen. He's the director of the New York City-based NASA Institute for Space Studies and one of the first scientists to speak out on the threat of global warming caused by man-made greenhouse gases.

With the latest data indicating that melting of ice sheets and rises in sea level are accelerating, Hansen estimates there might be only a decade left for the world's nations to take the necessary steps to contain emissions of carbon dioxide generated by industry and fossil fueled vehicles. If business as usual is allowed to continue beyond that point, Hansen fears natural feedback systems will fuel an uncontrollable warming cycle.

One of those feedbacks is the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice that caused record expanses of open water near the North Pole this summer. Because ice reflects sunlight back into space while darker seawater absorbs its heat, less ice generates higher temperatures. Another measure will occur when the permafrost tundra in Alaska and Siberia begins to thaw, unleashing methane locked for thousands of years in the frozen soil. Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

Hansen is less concerned about the burning of oil and natural gas, because of their low content of carbon compared to coal. "If we would just agree to have a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2, then we would have 80 percent of the solution, and it's doable," Hanson said. He also noted that existing coal plants would have to be phased out and replaced by new, cleaner technologies by the middle of the century. "If we don't," he warned, "we get a different planet."

That message, promoted by former Vice President Al Gore, who won an Academy Award and Nobel Peace Prize for his documentary movie An Inconvenient Truth, is finding a receptive ear in unlikely places, such as Kansas. There, state health and environment officials cited global warming concerns as the primary reason for the rejection of a permit application for two coal-fired plants that would have pumped 11 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. That action follows a groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court decision that greenhouse gases can be classed as a pollutant under air quality statutes.

Texas is the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions of any state. Before locking us into a new generation of coal-burning power plants that will last a half century or more, state regulators should carefully review the latest science on the issue and consider becoming part of the solution to climate change rather than the problem.